Does the Aston Martin Victor Have the Most Unlikely Supercar Origin Story Ever?

Resourcefulness meets retro homage

Aston Martin Victor
The Aston Martin Victor.
Liam Walker, CC BY-SA 4.0

What makes for a memorable supercar? It might be a designer looking to take a bold risk for the first time, or an engineer seeking to push an engine to its limits and beyond. If you’re an aficionado of high-performance cars with striking designs, there are plenty of great stories and compelling vehicles out there right now. But few, if any, can boast the combination of resourcefulness and sophistication that can be found in the Aston Martin Victor.

At Motor Trend, Kyle Fortune offered his first impressions of the Victor — and explored its unlikely genesis. Essentially, Aston Martin created a supercar when they realized that they had, in Fortune’s words, “a low-mileage carbon-fiber monocoque and V-12 engine from a One-77 prototype” in storage. Aston Martin’s Q Division explored things they could do with it; evidently, what they landed on was creating an entirely new car. As one does.

Fortune describes the Victor as “an unabashed nod to the V8 Vantage of the 1970s and ’80s,” finding homages to the marque’s history in unexpected places. Only one exists, and its owner has preferred to remain anonymous — though, as Fortune writes, “he is happy to let a handful of people drive the Victor.” Which is not a bad thing for Aston Martin enthusiasts around the world curious about how this particular model runs.

As Jalopnik’s Raphael Orlove phrased it, the Victor “was built out of a bunch of spare parts Aston Martin forgot it had lying around.” As flexes go, that might well be the apex, as far as automobiles are concerned.

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